Posted by Peter H on August 20, 2007 at 15:43:43 from 217.42.253.133 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: 'Toff' ruled out (was Amazons Toffs? posted by andyb on August 20, 2007 at 09:07:29:
the only way you can argue that the Blackett/Turner family is not upper class is to use your own definition of upper class
Andy - It will not surprise you to learn that I do use my own definition of 'upper class', or at least one different from yours. Surely 'upper class' means the aristocracy, minor royalty, minor aristocracy and the long-time historic landowners and their hangers-on, Lord Lieutenants of the Counties etc etc. They tend to all know each other, or each other's 'people'. They may have gone to a noted public school, but are more likely to have been educated by private tutors.
The Blackett/Turners are miles away from all that. Mrs B lives in a run-down house by a lake - the sort of place her husband could have picked up for a song just after WWI. Bob Blackett was a local, and doesn't sound to me like a secret baronet. As for the G.A. - look here, the things the G.A. does in the books are, by genuine upper class standards, simply . . . not . . . done. Ugh, how bourgeois!